Svalbard Adventures

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Scrambling to obtain a COVID-19 test newly mandated just hours before their flight home Friday was only the most immediate of the very painful and likely very lengthy consequences ahead.

A surge of new infections in Norway and globally is threatening economic decimation for many residents and businesses in Svalbard – again and more severely – for a second straight year just as the archipelago enters what should be peak tourism season as yet more travel restrictions were imposed late this week for the mainland and Svalbard.

At the same time, two major local tourism companies announced they’re temporarily laying off a total of 60 employees and a smaller independent company revealed its had only four guests since September.

About Post Author

Mark Sabbatini

I'm a professional transient living on a tiny Norwegian island next door to the North Pole, where once a week (or thereabouts) I pollute our extreme and pristine environment with paper fishwrappers decorated with seemingly random letters that would cause a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters to die of humiliation. Such is the wisdom one acquires after more than 25 years in the world's second-least-respected occupation, much of it roaming the seven continents in search of jazz, unrecognizable street food and escorts I f****d with by insisting they give me the platonic tours of their cities promised in their ads. But it turns out this tiny group of islands known as Svalbard is my True Love and, generous contributions from you willing, I'll keep littering until they dig my body out when my climate-change-deformed apartment collapses or they exile my penniless ass because I'm not even worthy of washing your dirty dishes.

marksabbatini@yahoo.com

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